Amara Santos
Marriage and Family Therapist Trainee
Santa Cruz Office
Habla Español
Humans are relational beings; it is in relation to others that we experience our wounding and our healing. The quality of our relationships across the lifespan shapes our experiences and influence our story, beginning with our family of origin and other caregivers, then expanding to friendships and partners, as well as cultural and societal constructs. How we make sense of our experiences impacts the way we move through the world, how we perceive ourselves and others, how our body feels, and how our nervous system becomes activated.
For me, therapy is a relationship where you can process your life experiences in a safe, brave, and supportive space to gain more self-awareness, compassion, understanding, and liberation from the patterns and emotional distress your body has been holding. I meet my clients where they are and hold the whole of them and their experiences with care and respect. I work with adults, children, and couples of all gender identities, cultural backgrounds, and neurotypes. I approach therapy through a feminist and liberation framework, oriented towards depth psychology, attachment theory, psychodynamics, somatic awareness, narrative therapy, and nervous system regulation. Some of the experiences I work with include anxiety, panic, depression, parenting, grief/loss, complex trauma, body image, disordered eating, and relationship patterns & dissatisfaction, among others.
Request an Appointment
To Request an Appointment at Shine a Light or NPCC, please fill out this form. We respond to inquiries Monday through Friday. All inquiries we receive on the weekends or holidays will be processed the next business day. Thank you for your patience. If you need immediate services, please call 911.
Agency Inquiries
New Office in San Francisco!
Shine a Light Counseling Center is please to merge with New Perspectives Center for Counseling. NPCC has been serving the San Francisco community for thirty years. Now NPCC is transitioning to become the San Francisco site for Shine a Light. NPCC will retain its name, character and history. For information about NPCC or counseling in San Francisco:
New Perspectives Center for Counseling (link)
Emergency Contact
Shine a Light does not provide crisis services. If you have a mental health emergency, call 988 or 911. Or click here for more Crisis Resources
Telephone Contact
You can call Shine a Light at 831-996-1222, but we encourage you to use the email forms to the left. If you call, please leave the following:
- Phone number
- Preferred location
- Best times to meet
- Issue you want help with
- What insurance you have (if any)
FAX us at: 831-417-0443
Good Faith Estimate
You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your therapy sessions will cost. Your fee will be set according to a sliding scale, in collaboration with your therapist, prior to your first counseling session. Total costs depend upon the number of sessions you choose to utilize.
If you have private health insurance and we are not in-network with your plan, please be aware that your costs for therapy may be less by using an in-network provider. This will depend upon your plan's deductible amounts and co-payments. In some cases, counseling at Shine a Light is less costly than using private insurance.
If you hope to use "out of network" benefits through your private insurance, please be aware that many plans will not reimburse for services provided by trainees. Please request an Associate level therapists for out-of-network billing.
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